Opening Bell: 05.11.12

JPMorgan’s $2 Billion Blunder (WSJ)
The CEO emphasized that the bank remains profitable despite the trading loss. “While we don’t give overall earnings guidance and we are not confirming current analyst estimates, if you did adjust current analyst estimates for the loss, we still earned approximately $4 billion after-tax this quarter give or take,” he said on the call. The bank earned $5.38 billion in the first quarter.

Drew Built 30-Year JPMorgan Career Embracing Risk (Bloomberg)
JPMorgan Chief Investment Officer Ina R. Drew, head of the unit responsible for a $2 billion trading loss, built a 30-year career at the largest U.S. bank by embracing risk and avoiding the spotlight. “With everything she does, she thinks in terms of trading,” said Stephen Murray, head of CCMP Capital Advisors LLC, created from a JPMorgan private-equity unit in 2006. “There are risk-lovers, there are risk-haters, and the best traders will take the risk as long as they get paid for it.” Drew’s operation, which helps manage the bank’s risk, has been transformed under Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon to make bigger speculative bets with the firm’s own money, according to five former employees, Bloomberg News reported last month. Some bets were so big JPMorgan probably couldn’t unwind them without roiling markets, the former executives said.

JPMorgan Holding Talks With UK Regulator (WSJ)
JPMorgan has been holding discussions with U.K. regulators about the roughly $2 billion of trading losses incurred by the giant bank’s investment office, according to people familiar with the matter. The talks with the Financial Services Authority don’t represent a formal inquiry by the regulator, one person said, and it isn’t clear whether it will result in any action by the regulatory agency. The FSA has been requesting information from J.P. Morgan about how the trading losses occurred and what steps the bank is taking to avoid such situations in the future, the people said.

Volcker Rule Proponents Say JPMorgan Loss Bolsters Case (Bloomberg)
Senator Carl Levin, the co-author of the so-called Volcker rule and chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, said the New York-based bank’s disclosure yesterday served as a “stark reminder” to regulators drafting the proprietary-trading ban required by the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act. “The enormous loss JPMorgan announced today is just the latest evidence that what banks call ‘hedges’ are often risky bets that so-called ‘too-big-to-fail’ banks have no business making,” Levin, a Michigan Democrat, said in a statement.

Wall Street’s Go-To Guy Trips Up (WSJ)
“I am not sure how many times I can say this: It was bad strategy, executed poorly,” Mr. Dimon said of the losses the company suffered in the past six weeks. The acknowledgment is a rare blow for Mr. Dimon, 56 years old, who has been on the top of the banking heap since joining J.P. Morgan Chase in 2004. He regularly extols J.P. Morgan’s “fortress balance sheet” and has repeatedly lashed out against lawmakers and regulators who have slapped more rules on the banking industry.

Italian man becomes mayor by accident (BBC)
Though he had not given much thought to a political platform before the vote, now he is in office he has said that he will focus on promoting tourism to the area.

EU Signs Of Recovery, Risks Remain (WSJ)
“A recovery is in sight, but the economic situation remains fragile, with still large disparities across member States,” Olli Rehn, Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs said in a statement. “Without further determined action, however, low growth in the European Union could remain.”

Faber Sees ’87-Type Crash If U.S. Stocks Rise Without QE3 (Bloomberg)
“I think the market will have difficulties to move up strongly unless we have a massive QE3,” Faber, who manages $300 million at Marc Faber Ltd., told Betty Liu on Bloomberg Television’s “In the Loop” from Zurich today, referring to a third round of large-scale asset purchases by the Fed. “If it moves and makes a high above 1,422, the second half of the year could witness a crash, like in 1987.”

Third masseur accuses John Travolta of inappropriate behavior (NYP)
Fabian Zanzi, a Chilean-born cruise worker who worked in VIP services, said Travolta offered him $12,000 for the tryst. Zanzi says he refused. Travolta was on the five-day cruise in 2009 without wife Kelly Preston and hit on Zanzi with a cheesy pickup line, the cruise worker said. “He said that I had something on my neck. I thought it was lint,” Zanzi told the Chilean news show “Primer Plano.” “When he got close to me, he took off his white robe and he was naked.”

Jamie, let's get wasted buddy. My treat, after all you just lost 2 billion. What? No I'm not in the same position, BAC is – well, shit – you buy me a drink then pal, looks like I'm a broke motherfucker.

Everybody just needs to settle down. I'll be the first to admit, this trade looks really bad now, but in time you'll see that this was the right trade to make. All we need is to give this strategy enough time to play out, and you'll see that I'm right. And then you'll all be thanking me.

Fucking banks are ruining the oil trading business!! Here's some fucking back ground so you young shit heads pay attention: In the old days if we had a fucking "loser" cargo of Es Sider or some VLCC of Ta Ching, that fucking arsenic laden Chinese shit they call "crude oil", we'd sail that motherfucker across the books into the "refining" ledger. We'd let those assholes who call themselves products traders get all fucking busy with their little broker buddies on the phone to try to fucking make that shit into some sort of refined fucking product and sail it around the world looking for a home or until the market for fucked up refined products rallied for some dumbass reason. In so doing, our trading book looked fucking perfect and we never had a "loss" in trading as a result. Those pleated pants products trading prick, mustache wearing assholes…and even the male traders on ther desk as well, …… who'd brag about their glorious fucking days in Singapore ad nauseum and ride a trade into the fucking ground would have to deal with that floating "turd in transit" . Now, as to these fucking dipshit bankers: They ain't got no "financial refinery' to take their dumbass, bullshit trades that those fucking Mensa members on their staff created and said would never fucking fail and boil those trades into "refined bullshit fucking financial trades" that they can hold and later piece out (no, not that fucking "peace out") to other dumbass Mensa-type competing financial fucks from the finest dumbass producing financial centers of higher fucking education that there are globally. And, goddammint, fucking flared pants will make a comeback!

"Drew, 55, is one of two women who sit on the New York-based firm’s operating committee. Her office oversees about $360 billion, the difference between money from deposits and what the bank extends in loans."

And she let Moby Dick build up a $100b position exposure in synthetic CDO's? 28% of her capital?

SAC

Mary Jo White was the top federal prosecutor in New York City during Bill Bratton’s first run as the Big Apple’s top cop, and she learned a few lessons from his “broken windows” theory: Clean a place up a little, and throw the fucking book at the street urchins who are messing things up with […]

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